February is Heart Month

New studies have shown that sugar can impact heart health, regardless of other health concerns like obesity or diabetes. When sugar is ingested, your body reacts by releasing insulin. This spike in insulin when occurring continuously, starts to take a toll on the lining of your blood vessels and arterial walls, leaving them inflamed. Daily consumption of sugar which can hover at a high level all day will cause your heart health to plummet.
According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, people who consumed more than 21% of their daily calories from added sugar were at double the risk of death from heart disease than those who consumed less than 10% of calories from added sugars. That means something as simple as an extra shake from the drive-thru—containing 50 grams of sugar, on average— is enough to double your daily intake. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, approximately 37% of the added sugar in Americans’ diets comes from sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas and juices. (You would think drinking a glass of orange juice would be healthy but it is not at 24 grams of sugar in an 8 ounce bottle.)
It’s important to note that the findings were consistent across age groups, sex, physical-activity levels, weights and other dietary habits. This is significant because it is unlike other health threats whose probability can be based on things like genetics and gender.

Sugar pseudonyms are more common than you might think, so when reading a label watch for: barley malt, beet sugar, brown sugar, cane or date sugar, cane-juice crystals, pure sugar cane juice, evaporated cane juice, dried cane juice, caramel, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), dextran, diastaste, fruit juice or concentrate, golden sugar or syrup, raw sugar, refiner’s syrup, sorghum, turbinado sugar, yellow sugar, invert sugar, malt syrup, rice syrup, maltodextrin, and all ingredients ending in “-ose” such as sucrose, dextrose, glucose, maltose, lactose, ethyl maltose, fructose, and levulose.  Oh, and that also means agave. Agave, which is naturally sweeter than sugar, has also recently been linked to cardiovascular disease, as well as diabetes and miscarriage during pregnancy.

There is also a problem with the fructose found in honey and maple syrup. These sweeteners should be used with caution especially those people following a Paleo diet. They are not a free pass. Watch the youtube video by Dr. Robert Lustig "Sugar The Bitter Truth"

One thing most people don’t realize about sugar is that it begs the old “the chicken or the egg” question: Which came first, the craving or the consumption? Too much sugar in your system can cause Candida to grow out of control, and this normally harmless yeast can easily become an invasive resident. Candida needs sugar to reproduce, so the more sugar (and carbohydrates) you eat, the more you will crave. While everybody knows your waistline suffers, the new study illuminates the fact that your heart will too.

Sugar has snuck in the backdoor and is robbing our health blind. With our attention averted elsewhere, sugar has ravaged our physical well-being in the form of obesity, diabetes, poor dental health, digestive challenges, and now the threat to heart health has officially been added to the list—and in serious fashion. The safest way to dodge added sugar is to enjoy whole foods with as little processing as possible.

Healthy life,
Suzanne

Diabetes, Obesity and Sugar

There has been a lot information in the news, online and books about the hazards of eating sugar.
The newspapers are saying that there is an epidemic of diabetes that will be out of control very soon.

Mark Hyman newest article: http://drhyman.com/blog/2012/05/03/sugar-babies-how-to-stop-the-genocide-of-our-children/?utm_source=WhatCounts+Publicaster+Edition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=drhyman+newsletter+issue+%2372&utm_content=Get+the+story

Gary Taubes (author of the 2011 best-seller Why We Get Fat) has just published an article in Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign. 
He along with Cristin Kearns Couzens (a dental health administrator) wrote about the sugar industry's duplicity.
In fact, a growing body of research suggests that sugar and its nearly chemically identical cousin, HFCS, may very well cause diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year, and that these chronic conditions would be far less prevalent if we significantly dialed back our consumption of added sugars. Robert Lustig, a leading authority on pediatric obesity at the University of California-San Francisco made this case last February in the prestigious journal Nature. In an article titled "The Toxic Truth About Sugar," Lustig and two colleagues observed that sucrose and HFCS are addictive in much the same way as cigarettes and alcohol, and that over consumption of them is driving worldwide epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes (the type associated with obesity). Sugar-related diseases are costing Americans around $150 billion a year, the authors estimated, so federal health officials need to step up and consider regulating the stuff. He also has a Youtube video "Sugar: Bitter Truth"

So you ask what can you eat and feed your loved ones. There are many good books to help you. Some that were an eye opener for me was Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, Elaine Gottshall's Breaking the Viscous Cycle, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride Gut and Psychology Syndrome also known as the GAPS diet. These are good guide books to help heal and teach us a better way of eating.

We have to stop and think what we are feeding our children and grandchildren. We are not being kind or generous when we give them pop and candy. They should have fresh fruit, vegetables, good fats and treats that are healthier for you from a very young age. Stop buying and eating the prepackaged food.

I advocate no sugar, no wheat and no dairy after weaning. We are the only mammals that drink the milk from another mammal.http://www.notmilk.com/ There are so many good choices and a lot of good cook books to guide us.
Healthy life.
Suzanne




 

Wheat Belly: an excerpt

Dr. Davis wrote "I am going to argue that the problem with the diet and health of most Americans and Canadians is wheat—or what we are being sold that is called “wheat.”
Documented peculiar effects of wheat on humans include appetite stimulation, exposure to brain-active exorphins (the counterpart of internally derived endorphins), exaggerated blood sugar surges that trigger cycles of satiety alternating with heightened appetite, the process of glycation that underlies disease and aging, inflammatory and pH effects that erode cartilage and damage bone, and activation of disordered immune responses. A complex range of diseases results from consumption of wheat, from celiac disease—the devastating intestinal disease that develops from exposure to wheat gluten—to an assortment of neurological disorders, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, curious rashes, and the paralyzing delusions of schizophrenia.
 So why has this seemingly benign plant that sustained generations of humans suddenly turned on us? For one thing, it is not the same grain our forebears ground into their daily bread. Wheat has changed dramatically in the past fifty years under the influence of agricultural scientists. Wheat strains have been hybridized, crossbred, and introgressed to make the wheat plant resistant to environmental conditions, such as drought, or pathogens, such as fungi. But most of all, genetic changes have been induced to increase yield per acre. Such enormous strides in yield have required drastic changes in genetic code. Such fundamental genetic changes have come at a price.
 People are usually shocked when I tell them that whole wheat bread increases blood sugar to a higher level than sucrose.1 Aside from some extra fiber, eating two slices of whole wheat bread is really little different, and often worse, than drinking a can of sugar-sweetened soda or eating a sugary candy bar.
 This information is not new. A 1981 University of Toronto study launched the concept of the glycemic index, i.e., the comparative blood sugar effects of carbohydrates: the higher the blood sugar after consuming a specific food compared to glucose, the higher the glycemic index (GI). The original study showed that the GI of white bread was 69, while the GI of whole grain bread was 72 and Shredded Wheat cereal was 67, while that of sucrose (table sugar) was 59.2 Yes, the GI of whole grain bread is higher than that of sucrose. Incidentally, the GI of a Mars Bar nougat, chocolate, sugar, caramel, and all—is 68. That’s better than whole grain bread. The GI of a Snickers bar is 41—far better than whole grain bread.
You can read the rest of this post at http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2011/oct2011_Wheat-The-Unhealthy-Whole-Grain_01.htm
As Dr. Davis says

No primate or primitive culture eats grains. None certainly consumes high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat, nor genetically-modified corn. Yet we are told that grains should dominate our diet, occupy the widest part of the food pyramid, the biggest part of the food plate? Wheat is ONLY for the desperate or uninformed!

Here is another link http://www.my9tv.com/video?clipId=8001744&autoStart=true
  
We were told that eating high fiber ex: wheat bran, shredded wheat, all bran etc.....we would be healthy.
What a bunch of lies!! No wonder we have so much cancer, Alzheimer's and other related diseases.
While on the subject of GI index, Julie Daniluk has a new book "Meals That Heal Inflammation" that explains in detail the problem with sugar from all hidden sources. Great recipes too.
Dr. Robert Lustig has a You Tube Video call "The Bitter Truth". He too explains the evils of fructose.
Two good books that you can get from the library: "The Blood Sugar Solution" by Dr. Mark Hyman is a go to for information and "The Sugar Fix" by Dr. Richard J. Johnson helps to explain the dangers of fructose and where they are hidden.
Educate yourselves, the more we know the more we can fight  against disease.
Paleo people would only have seen fruit in moderation because of the changing seasons and only during summer months. We eat too much fruit, too much sugars and too much processed food. 
Healthy Life
Suzanne